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WoO: Saldana Wins; Schatz Takes Title
Written by: Tony Veneziano
World of Outlaws   http://www.worldofoutlaws.com
11/08/2009
Concord, NC
 
A couple pieces of history were made on Saturday night live on SPEED in the finale of the World Finals at The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor Speedway before a standing room only crowd as Joey Saldana became just the fifth driver in the 30-plus year history of the series to win at least 20 A-Feature events in a single season, while Donny Schatz became just the second driver ever to win four consecutive World of Outlaws titles.
Donny Schatz became just the second driver ever to win four consecutive World of Outlaws titles. (WoO) ยป More Photos

Saldana's win was his second of the season at the state-of-the-art four-tenths-mile and he joins an illustrious list of drivers that have won 20 or more A-Feature events in a season with the World of Outlaws, as only 20-time series champion Steve Kinser, three-time titlist Sammy Swindell, two-time champ Mark Kinser and Doug Wolfgang have accomplished that feat prior to Saturday night. Including a preliminary feature win during the Gold Cup Race of Champions in September, Saldana finished the year with 21 overall triumphs.

“This is great,” said Saldana. “In my mind I had won 20 (races), but it's not official until you have that 2-0 and we did it. Not many men have done that and it's a pretty tough feat to accomplish. It means our team is going in the right direction and we know we can do it. We definitely have the package to win races, we just have to work on the package to finish races and finishing respectable every night.”

The title for Schatz was his fourth consecutive and second straight driving for Tony Stewart Racing and makes him the only driver other than Steve Kinser to win four and to win four consecutive. The North Dakota native won 12 times this season and led the series with 39 Top-Five finishes.

“If feels awesome,” Schatz said. “It's a great season when you can win a championship and be the most consistent. It's very rewarding and I don't know what to say right now. I'm kind of speechless right now and it won't sink in until tomorrow. It's pretty awesome and I am glad to be part of this with everyone at Armor, STP, Chevy and ParkerStore. I'm a lucky guy to get to be part of this and I can't say thanks enough to the guys that work on these cars and make sure they don't fall apart on me and make sure I have fast cars and am competitive. I want to thank Tony Stewart for what he has done for us and keeping us on our edge.”

Saldana lined up on the outside of the front row in the Budweiser Maxim on Saturday night, with pole sitter Dale Blaney taking the lead at the start and pacing the field for the 14 laps. The leaders found themselves in lapped traffic on the sixth go-around with Saldana closing back in after Blaney had opened a sizeable lead. Saldana went to the high side of turn four on the seventh lap, nearly taking the lead and then dove under Blaney in turns one and two on the next circuit again nearly taking the top spot. For the next four laps a couple of slower machines separated the pair with Saldana closing back in on the 14th lap. On the 15th lap Saldana charged to the high side in turns one and two and took the lead from Blaney and would go on to pace the field for the remainder of the 30-lapper.

“We put a little harder of a tire on and I didn't know if he had a softer one, so I wasn't pushing it,” notes the winner. “He just told me that he had the same tire I had on. With 30 laps, it will be a pretty fast pace and I didn't want to do anything stupid. As soon as
we got to lapped traffic and got moving around, that's when I got him. We had a great car and just worked hard on it.”

The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor Speedway is the home track for Saldana's Kasey Kahne Racing team, which is based in Mooresville, North Carolina. In addition to Donny Schatz, Saldana is the only driver that has competed in all 23 of the previous World of Outlaws races at the track.

“When your shop is 20 miles away and your team and their families are from here, and they are all able to come out and watch us and see all of that hard work in the off-season pay off is great,” shared Saldana. “It's huge for us to run well here. It's been a tough place for me and we figured it out.”

After having a wheel break while running third on Friday night, Blaney wound up second in the finale of the World Finals after leading the first 15 laps of the race in the Ti-22 Performance Maxim. Blaney used a lap-21 restart to get alongside Saldana in turn one, but could not quite make the pass. On the final restart of the night he again dove under Saldana in turns one and two, but Saldana held the lead.

“Any time we come and run with the Outlaws we seem to run good and that makes us feel like we accomplished a little bit,” Blaney said. “We had a great car all weekend and tonight I felt like I made a mistake that cost me the race. We always look forward to running with the Outlaws and it had been a few years since we had been down here. It's a pretty cool place to come to.”

Jason Meyers who entered the race 25 points behind Donny Schatz in the closest-ever battle for the World of Outlaws title wound up third in the GLR Investments KPC, which was three spots ahead of Schatz, though he ended the season second in points, 19 markers behind the champion in what was ultimately the closest finish in series history. The native of Clovis, California was running fourth on the final lap on Saturday night and won a drag race with Steve Kinser down the front straightway to snag the final spot on the podium by less than a tenth of a second.

“We had a great race car tonight,” stated Meyers. “These guys worked hard and Brian Bloomfield who does our tires made a gamble there and made a great call and gave me a great race car. We knew we had to go for broke and roll the dice tonight and try to get to the front. We did and Donny (Schatz) still had a good run so we came up a little short in the championship. This entire team did a great job this year and I feel blessed to get to work with them. We are going to work hard over the winter and I can't wait for Florida.”

Kinser ended up fourth in the Quaker State Maxim, with fellow Hall of Famer Fred Rahmer in fifth aboard the Miller Brothers machine. Schatz ended up sixth after falling back to 10th early in the race piloting a special edition STP J&J. Danny Lasoski was seventh in the Casey's General Store JEI, with Terry McCarl eighth aboard the Big Game Treestands Maxim. Tim Shaffer came from 21st to finish ninth in the Kistler Engines J&J to earn the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger Award, with Ed Lynch Jr. rounding out the Top-10 in the Howard Concrete J&J.

The World of Outlaws wrap up the 2009 season on Sunday night with the series annual Night of Champions which will be held at the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, North Carolina.
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